On Fox NFL Preview, or whatever, they were reporting on the Eagles wanting to add kevlar inside of Michael Vick’s helmet. He suffered a concussion, and they wanted the added protection. Now, kevlar is a fiber, and is used in body armor and other applications where puncture resistance is desired, and is very good in those applications. Where they wanted to put it is between Michael Vick’s head and the inside of the normal helmet padding.
I’m not seeing why they need puncture resistance there, and how that would help versus some kind of compression padding.
So the GQ question is, is this just a case of someone saying “They use kevlar in body armor, we should use it in helmets!” with no real understanding of what properties of padding would be useful? Or is there some real reason why kevlar would be useful here?
This isn’t just a case of adding some Kevlar to a helmet while thinking, “Hey, Kevlar is tough; let’s put some in Vick’s helmet.”
There is a company who uses Kevlar in a type of customized helmet as part of --* part of *-- the overall comprehensive approach to minimize concussions and protect noggins in general (I’m chock full o’ redundancy today).
I’m sure there is a specific application where it makes sense inside the helmet, and am assuming it has to do with a predictable impact absorbing property of Kevlar.
It’s all over local news in Philly. I will look for details.
Thanks.